I’m glad to see that this interview has sparked an interesting debate. It’s been a pleasure to read all your thoughts, and I only regret that I didn’t push more on some of these important issues myself in the interview. But we could only cover so much ground.
In private conversation with RMS I summarised the main initial points as follows: How should one view the labour of developers that has gone into producing things like Red Hat which—as I’m sure you are well aware—was just procured by IBM for an astonishing $34bn. How much was unpaid voluntary labour? How much was paid for at normal programmers’ wage levels in the contributions of organisations like Red Hat to the Linux kernel? Should something of such stratospheric valuations be passed on to the original developers, and how might that be organised? His response, which he sent with the permission to post: I think those questions are a doctrinaire distraction from the real issue at stake. Linux, the kernel typically used with the GNU operating system and in Android, does not belong to Red Hat or to IBM. Likewise for the GNU packages that Red Hat contributes to: they belong, in a legal sense, to the Free Software Foundation, but it is only their steward on behalf of the public. These programs belong to the public. We're grateful when companies put funds into developing these packages which everyone can use in freedom. They join thousands of individuals volunteers that contribute to free software packages, and we're grateful for their work too. To fuss about how much money Linus Torvalds will get for Linux, or how much I will get for the GNU C Compiler, is a distraction from what really matters: that these programs are available for everyone to use in freedom and communuty. He and I, separately, had the opportunity to assure ourselves of profit, by releasing software after the user-subjugating fashion of Microsoft and Apple. If we had done so, if we had made our software an instrument for our power over its users, we might get more of the superficial reward of money. But would deserve a punishment for it rather than a reward. > On 1 Nov 2018, at 08:00, Carsten Agger <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 11/1/18 7:02 AM, Brian Holmes wrote: >> On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 5:17 PM Frederick Noronha >> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> The 'freedom to afford software' should be actually included as the Fifth >> Freedom of the Free Software Campaign worldwide. As things stand, the >> outrageous pricing of software (notwithstanding >> the FOSS challenge) has made it unaffordable to maybe 80% of >> the world's population. Talking from an Indian context, it has been >> sometimes roughly calculated how much a license fee would cost in terms of >> the income of an average person, or even a middle-class person. >> >> People are excluded by the pricing (apart from the Freedom aspect). Many >> millions more. >> This is a great thread, and to my mind the above statement is the most >> important one in it. >> > It *is* very important that all software necessary in our daily lives be > available free of charge, in state of the art quality. > > That was also an early value of the Ubuntu project - being, not incidentally, > founded by an entrepeneur from South Africa. > > It's important to remember, though, that "free as in beer" can never replace > "free as in freedom". For a philanthropist to sponsor the development of > proprietary software, withholding the source code and denying the right to > fix bugs and redistribute, can never be a worthy cause. That would be like > facebook's restricted Internet, that they wanted to impose on India's poor, > all over again. Software *must* be free as in the four freedoms. > > But, the fifth freedom that Frederick stipulates is more or less a > consequence of the first four. If I develop some software and sell it under > the GPL for $10,000 a pop, there's nothing to stop you from buying a copy and > put it on your server for anyone to download. 10,000 people could give you > one dollar each to support the initiative. So once free software exists, its > market price will, if it's popular, quickly tend to zero. > > But it still makes sense to *sell* free software - and that's because > software doesn't create itself. Software development is (speaking as someone > with 22 years of experience in the field) difficult, error-prone, > time-consuming and thus expensive. So whereas the software should be gratis, > the developers' time shouldn't. Unpaid volunteers, whether they be idealistic > activists, hackers just having fun or a mixture of both, can't be the base of > the infrastructure of the future - and that's what we want free software to > be: *all* software should be free software. That means selling the idea *and* > selling the ideas, the individual development projects, to the companies and > authorities that need new software. > > And that is, of course, to a large extent what's already happening. That's > what I've been doing at work for seven years now, writing software under free > licenses for paying customers. And that's also how many of the largest > projects are run, by professionals who get paid. Not all, but even many of > those run entirely by volunteers are run of people with a background as IT > professionals. A professional infrastructure, ready to use for all of > humanity, will not be built by amateurs. > > So yes: Software should be available free of charge - and, on the other hand, > those who can should take part in its funding, because with no funding it > won't happen. > > >> >> Freedom that leaves no one out has to be organized collectively. That's not >> easy, there were major flaws in most efforts so far, but in an era when >> capitalism is showing its own fatal flaws, it's time to try again. >> > I agree completely! There needs to be a firm democratic control on the > funding process I mentioned before. > > > Best > > Carsten > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
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